I would imagine that this is done via digital sampling, but even on the narrow setting it's still 1080p which is enough for me, I don't need 4K video from our boat and having a more narrow FOV right out of the camera is way better than trying to crop later, especially when feeding to in-boat video monitor.

The go pro hero 3 is wifi enabled. You can link it to your smart phone, I pod, etc via wifi and have full functionality from your phone. This allows you to mount it anywhere and use the phone to control it. Wifi on the go pro has a range of about 30ft so you are good to go.

Also you have the option to change the wide angle to standard view. Sometimes the 270degree view looks out of place. You can change it to your typical 180 view so it looks like a traditional camera.